The field of the invention is parking meters and the invention relates more particularly to electronic parking meters.
Parking meters have been used to increase the availablility of parking spaces in urban areas by limiting the amount of time that a vehicle can legally occupy a parking space. Such meters also become a source of revenue in larger urban areas by collection of parking fines. The conventional parking meter used in most cities is a completely mechanical device which has a coin deposit slot and a handle which is turned after a coin is deposited. The turning of the handle retracts a red violation sign and initiates a clock which indicates the time remaining on the parking meter as the result of the deposit of money. When the time has expired the red violation sign once again covers the window. A parking control officer periodically surveys the parking meters and writes a citation for violations which he observes. Because of the relatively small size of the parking meter and the relatively large size of numerous vehicles, such as vans, the detection of parking violations is a slow, tedious, labor-intensive task.